Review: The Hole

The Hole by Hiroko Oyamada
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Sometimes I love exploring a book without having any notion of what it may be about beforehand. I saw that The Hole was written by Hiroko Oyamada and wasn't a fantasy novel which is a genre I gravitate towards. It's important to step away from habits every now and then. With that little bit of information, I ventured into this novella blindly and came out thinking what the hell did I just read which is a lovely sentiment.


This is a story that will make you think. Asa and her husband relocate to an adjacent house next door to the latter's parents to be closer to his work. Moving from the city to a town, it's inconvenient in the respect that transportation is limited and without a car the options are slim. Asa leaves her job in the city for the move but is unable to acquire work right away due to her husband using their only car for his work. She spends time walking to the grocery store and napping. Sometimes she reads. She explains that she lives from meal to meal as preparing breakfast, lunch, and dinner are the only routine of each day. It's not too far off from how people currently are or were dealing with the quarantine. She's totally relatable. Asa comes across as directionless, trying to find some way to deal with her solitude. Her mother-in-law doesn't seem to like her very much, at least from what I can tell. Her husband's ninety-year-old Grandfather also lives next door with his parents. He spends his time outdoors watering the Garden. Or flooding it, rather.

Asa's life changes when her Mother in Law asks her to run an errand and she comes across a large animal. It's never stated what the animal is. It's big like a dog, but it's not a weasel or a raccoon. She follows it and ends up falling into a Hole. It's not too deep of a hole. Only 5 feet and her head sticks out level with the grass.

From this point on the book becomes highly open to interpretation. She is helped out of the hole by the neighbor that lives on the other side of her In-laws. It's hard to say exactly what is real and what is made up in Asa's head. Are the creature and the hole a metaphor for her own isolation and her interest in it an attempt to give meaning to her stunted life? I would say most likely yes. Later on in the story, the neighbor visits and mentions a name that was not her husband's. She corrects herself but after this slip-up, Asa meets a brother she never knew her husband had. He is not mentioned or referenced by anyone else in the family. I'm convinced he isn't real. I'll leave that for you to decide but the ending with her discovery of the Shed's condition, which is where the brother in law lives, convinces me I'm correct. He is similarly in the same situation as Asa. Someone who lives in isolation due to the decisions they have made.

There's also a pattern relating to children. Asa's coworker before she leaves her job asks her if she's going to be a housewife and get pregnant. She has multiple run-ins with children in situations involving her brother-in-law. Its almost like she's projecting having a child as an excuse to prove she's worthy of existing. Asa has to figure out what is going on with the town, the animals, the mysterious brother in law, and the truth about the family she married into.

Unfortunately, this being a Novella I feel talking more about it would require me to write the whole book here. It was very short. I'm hesitant to even call it a Novella. It took me around an hour to read it so if you are looking for something that is quick and makes you think, then this would work out well. I love how it is open to interpretation.

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